A Project for Anytime Anywhere Learning by Microsoft Corporation Notebooks for Schools by Toshiba America Information Systems Executive Summary ROCKMAN ET AL San Francisco,CA June, 1997

The pilot laptop program, sponsored jointly by Microsoft Corporation and Toshiba America, seeks to facilitate "anytime, anywhere" learning by helping schools acquire laptop computers and Microsoft Office software tools for every student. The pilot year implementation involved 26 sites, including both private schools and public school districts, for a total of 53 elementary, middle, and high schools. Participants ranged from schools with no previous computer experience to some of the most technologically advanced schools in the country.

ROCKMAN ET AL, an independent research group, undertook a study to explore the experiences of the schools during the pilot year. Using surveys, interviews, and site visit observations, ROCKMAN ET AL sought to document the range of school models for the program, explore the schools' implementation processes, and investigate any impacts on teaching and learning. More than 400 teachers participated in the evaluation process.

• The ways in which schools implemented the program depended on a variety of factors, including available planning time, financial and technical support resources, and concerns about providing equal access to students. Further, how the computers were perceived and appreciated also depended on several situational factors: the existing level of the school's technology program, the intensity of the implementation, the experience of the teachers, and the size of the classes.

• For some schools, especially many of the private schools, the laptops came on top of extensive computer labs, lots of desktop computers in the classrooms and, often, access to family computers at home. However, for other schools, particularly many of the public schools, the program's greatest impact was not on the nature of computer access, but the fact that they provided any access at all. Administrators said they saw the program as the first real opportunity they'd had to provide wide-scale computer access to their students.

*Group A Schools: schools with very little or relatively small pre-existing technology programs; often class size is large and students do not have family computers at home **Group B Schools: schools with often well-developed technology programs; often class size is small and students have access to family computers at home

• While all administrators agreed that a full time, one-to-one ratio, 100% inclusion model was their ideal, they cited various constraints which led many to adopt other implementation models. The five models we found are: • a concentrated model, in which all students in a classroom have their own laptop, which they are free to take home; • a dispersed model, in which students with laptops are dispersed throughout a grade or school, so that in any particular class there are both laptop and non-laptop students; • a class set model, in which schools purchase a set of laptops that teachers can then check out as a set for specific time periods; • a desktop model, in which district-purchased laptops are distributed a few to each classroom, with little opportunity to carry them home; • and a mixed model, in which schools or districts combine two of the four approaches either within or between schools.

• Each of the differing approaches to implementation yielded encouraging outcomes that sustained the program and satisfied the schools. However, models which provided one-to-one and continuous access elicited the most praise and allowed the most time for developing integrated curriculum uses.

• Teachers are using the laptops inside classrooms in many ways, with different benefits for students. These variations are a product of many factors, including the implementation model, the school's prior technology background, available staff development, varying class sizes, grade levels and subjects, and individual differences in approach to teaching.

Applications of Laptops Reported by Teachers Uses of LaptopsReported Percentages Word processing74% reports/ 60% note taking Presentations58% Internet52% Spreadsheets33% Keyboarding16% Skill remediation (drill)12% Learning software applications43% Databases12% Electronic portfolios /record keeping18% Games20% Doing homework64% Running models6% Other use20%

• In schools which have had the laptops the longest, classroom applications seem to evolve in stages. First, many teachers and students must learn the very basics of computer and application use, and they often do so in tandem. Second, teachers move on to a stage of experimentation, in which they emphasize computer use, trying a variety of approaches and then gauging the results. Finally, once a range of uses have been explored, teachers tend to focus back again on the curriculum, and employ the laptops as tools when they seem most appropriate.

• Many of the teachers who must engage classrooms full of laptop owners are still attempting to master the technology and software, yet they can usually relinquish the role of expert to students who have already progressed far beyond teachers' abilities. The program encourages teacher risk taking.

• Teachers are taking on new roles as learners, often looking to both colleagues and students to assist them, while students are becoming the teachers of their faculty and of their peers. These new roles are a direct consequence of the intensity of the technology changes in the participating schools. • Teachers can identify ways in which their participation in the program is beginning to modify their teaching styles and approaches to instruction.

• Changes in student attitude, motivation, and behavior are seen within a very short time for those students participating in the program. Teachers identify an array of benefits to student learning strategies and to learning outcomes. Among the benefits widely perceived are increased collaboration, movement towards independent learning, greater enthusiasm for schooling, and more engagement in problem solving.

• Schools contended with a variety of barriers during the pilot year, including: Reliability of hardware given intensive student use; Meeting the needs for parent education; Providing sufficient training for curriculum integration; Working with less than the full, concentrated model; Improving students' keyboarding skills; Identifying strategies for financing and scaling up the program.

Yet, once the program was underway, problems were quickly forgotten and the potential of the program to improve teaching and learning become the focus of activity.

• The experience of the pilot year participants yields important information for schools and districts wanting to begin a laptop program. Schools planing to initiate or expand the laptop program need to consider: Establishing support at the school site and in the community Capitalizing on membership in a unique program Allowing sufficient time for integrating the new capabilities into the curriculum Growing the program in schools with limited technology access and experience Setting appropriate priorities for professional development Managing the amount of technology and solving technology problems Providing a means through which teachers can share successful lessons with others Providing sufficient opportunity to experiment with new instructional approaches Maintaining support from site and community leaders Establishing new and continuing assessment and evaluation strategies.

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